The present invention relates to a system and method for determining whether a previously-detected vehicle sensor malfunction still exists.
Modern vehicles include a variety of sensors for sensing the operating conditions of a vehicle. Such sensors include wheel speed sensors, steering angle sensors, yaw rate sensors, lateral acceleration sensors, longitudinal acceleration sensors, brake light sensors, etc. Each of the sensors is connected to a vehicle control system, such as an electronic stability control (“ESC”) system, or one or more electronic control units (“ECUs”) within the vehicle. The ESC or the ECUs include combinations of hardware and software which determine the operating conditions of the vehicle and compensate or control the vehicle's motion accordingly. However, the sensors and, subsequently, the signals received from the sensors, are susceptible to malfunctions and/or signal corruption. The ECUs are able to detect when a sensor malfunction has occurred or if the signals received from the sensors are abnormal (i.e., outside of an expected range of values). In such situations, the sensor or sensors (or information therefrom) are disregarded or not used by the vehicle control system when controlling the vehicle. When a sensor fault or malfunction is detected, one or more indicators or tell-tales, such as a check engine light, are also activated or illuminated to indicate to a vehicle operator that a malfunction has occurred.